<html> <head> <title>Smack: Overview - Jive Software</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css" /> </head> <body> <div class="header"> Smack Overview </div> <div class="nav"> « <a href="index.html">Table of Contents</a> </div> <p> Smack is a library for communicating with XMPP servers to perform instant messaging and chat.<p> <p class="subheader"> Smack Key Advantages </p> <ul> <li>Extremely simple to use, yet powerful API. Sending a text message to a user can be accomplished in three lines of code: <div class="code"><pre> XMPPConnection connection = <font color="navy"><b>new</b></font> XMPPConnection(<font color="green">"jabber.org"</font>); connection.login(<font color="green">"mtucker"</font>, <font color="green">"password"</font>); connection.createChat(<font color="green">"jsmith@jivesoftware.com"</font>).sendMessage(<font color="green">"Howdy!"</font>); </pre></div> <li>Doesn't force you to code at the packet level, as other libraries do. Smack provides intelligent higher level constructs such as the <tt>Chat</tt> and <tt>GroupChat</tt> classes, which let you program more efficiently. <li>Does not require that you're familiar with the XMPP XML format, or even that you're familiar with XML. <li>Provides easy machine to machine communication. Smack lets you set any number of properties on each message, including properties that are Java objects. <li>Open Source under the Apache License, which means you can incorporate Smack into your commercial or non-commercial applications. </ul> <p class="subheader"> About XMPP </p> XMPP (eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) is an open, XML based protocol making it's way through the IETF approval process under the guidance of the Jabber Software Foundation (<a href="http://www.jabber.org">http://www.jabber.org</a>). For a good overview of the protocol, read the first chapter of <u>Instant Messaging in Java</u>, available free at <a href="http://www.jivesoftware.com/products/messenger/book/">http://www.jivesoftware.com/products/messenger/book/</a> <p class="subheader"> How To Use This Documentation </p> This documentation assumes that you're already familiar with the main features of XMPP instant messaging. It's also highly recommended that you open the Javadoc API guide and use that as a reference while reading through this documentation. <br clear="all" /><br><br> <div class="footer"> Copyright © Jive Software 2002-2003 </div> </body> </html>